Analysis

I had a steady day yesterday after not trading at the weekend. I was away at the weekend attending a wedding. The Screenshot shows you my effort from yesterday. It is taken from a very good spreadsheet created by Nigel on the Bet Angel forum. As you may be able to see you can analyse your results by race track, type of race distance etc. It is an excellent and useful tool. You can download a copy from the Bet Angel Forum.

Trading Video

Here is a video of a trade from yesterday. As you can see it was reasonably successful could and probably should have got out a tick earlier. Any feedback on the trade would be useful. I managed to make £50 from 6 races yesterday.

Boring Boring Football!

I am not talking about any team managed by Sam Allardyce but I am referring to trading football before the off. Peter Webb recently talked about how boring it is on his Blog

However for all you insomniacs out there here is a video of me trading the last 10 mins before a recent Prem League game. The best way to watch it would be in fast forward. There is very little to see except some large bets being matched and the fact that the market is very stable allowing traders to commit more money to the markets. I only trade these matches if I have nothing else to do as it can be quite a strain on the eyes.

Hard Slog

Over the last week my Horse Racing Trading has reached a bit of a plateau and it has felt like I am treading water. It has been one step forward and one step back. Take today for example I had a rare day when I could trade most of the races. I started very cautiously and went without a loss in the first ten races. Then for the rest of the day I made a bit in one race only to lose it in the next. The only thing that pleased me was the fact that I managed to keep my discipline. In the past I am sure I would have lost it especially on a Sunday usually my worst day by far. On days like this I know I couldn't do this full time and I take my hat off to those that can.

I have also decided to reduce my bank back to £500 as I am not feeling confident using larger stakes at the moment. This may have been part of the problem this last week. Since last week I have made just over £85 profit in too many races.

Preakness Stakes

I had a rare trade on the US markets tonight. I just traded the 10 mins before the off in the Preakness and managed to make a reasonable profit. The market was a bit slow and the volume traded was probably inline with an evening race in the UK. Normally the US markets are very low in volume so I don't bother although I know some traders do trade them.

The Preakness Stakes is the second leg of the American Triple crown. One thing worth noting is that the market is not offered in-play like the UK markets.

I will update progress soon but off to bed now.

Watch the Weather & Know your Duckworth Lewis

Just a quick post about cricket trading. Yesterday I had a small trade in the Derbyshire v Lancashire one day game. Basically I layed Lancs at low odds just after Derby had lost 2 quick wickets. Derby made a slow recovery and Lancs odds move out from 1.12 to 1.29. So for the small the small risk of £6 I made a profit of just under £5. I got out by placing £25 at 1.2 and £25 at 1.29. I was tempted to let the trade run but had other things to do so closed out my position. Within 5 mins Derby lost another wicket and then the rain came and the game was abandoned. The Lancs price collapsed within seconds.

Therefore Derby lost due to being behind on the Duckworth Lewis calculation. I am not sure anyone understands the calculation but you can find out here Duckworth Lewis. Whenever trading One Day cricket it is definitely worth knowing who is ahead on DL. It also helps to assess if the current price is accurate.

Racing update will follow soon.

Best Race for a while!

Another good day today. Including this good trade at Lingfield. Not much time to write anything else so I will let the picture do the talking.

Good Week So far!

Races Traded: 39 New Bank: £570

My trading has moved steadily along this week. As the week has gone on my results have grown and grown. Yesterday was a good example of sticking to my aim of not losing money. The first few races I was very defensive with my money and I was making a couple of pound on each race. this happened for about 6 races. Then suddenly i caught a couple of good Drifters and I made £38 on two races. It is amazing that with just a couple of good races behind me my confidence rocketed and suddenly the markets seem to make more sense.

Another milestone is that I made it to 50 races without any major mistakes. I am now focused on reaching 100 races. I think I can do it. Now my bank has passed £500. I am planning to withdraw a little bit of my profit each day. I feel I need to do this due to past mistakes when I have risked too much of my bank when suffering a big loss. I am hoping that I have moved passed this stage but by doing this I am making sure it is less likely to happen.

Nice Ladder

Races Traded:11 New Bank:£400

Some solid trading today. Just managed to make a few quid by sticking to my new discipline. So far so good I have now traded 31 races without any major risks taken. I am very happy with todays result as unlike Saturdays I normally struggle on Sundays. Maybe because there was a big meeting at Newmarket (with terrestrial TV coverage) the markets were more like a Saturday.

Above is a screen shot from some trading I did this morning. I am not showing it for the tiny profit I was about to make but to show the new feature on the Bet Angel ladder. I really like being able to see my potential profit or loss for any price. I think it has already helped me to identify exit points when a trade goes against me. As always Well Done Bet Angel.

It is also worth noting that the horse steamed into 1.83 ish before the off.

Solid Start

Races Traded:20 New Bank: £372

I made a solid start to the month, mainly by sticking to my aims. I started quite shaky but managed to keep the loses to a minimum and then the profits came later in the day. Personally at the moment I prefer the Saturday markets. They appear to make more sense to me than the weekday markets. I know this is in contrast to some traders. This maybe that as I am a part time trader I trade the Saturday markets more and therefore am more comfortable with them.

I also found something unusual today. I was trading a maiden race and there was a horse taking a big drift so I had my layed the horse and was watching it drift out about 7 ticks. I had my stop loss (on the ladder interface) set on Bet Angel at my entry point. Then suddenly a huge order went in and took the price down about 10 ticks and straight through my stop loss, which fired but wasn't matched. This actually worked in my favour as I canceled the order because I was so convinced that horse was going to drift again. It then drifted back out to its original price and I made a nice 7 ticks.

A good day lets hope I can keep it up.

May this month be Good for Trading?

I am back after a bit of a break. I made some bad mistakes at the beginning of April and decided to give trading a good break. It can be fairly difficult at this time of year so I have tried to go back to basics and have reduced my bank to £270 and hopefully proceed with caution. I have done a fair bit of reading in this time and have tried to think as if I were starting again. I enjoyed reading Leon the fixers recent post don't try and win. I think I need to follow this advice at the moment to get my confidence back up as this got shot to pieces at the beginning of the month.

My main concern as always will be my reaction to losses. I still think I am getting there but I need evidence of about 50 races of not messing up that I have finally turned corner. By messing up I mean not taking any unnecessary risks e.g. letting trades go inplay. Whilst trying to trade 50 races without going inplay I will update my progress on a more regular basis. If I can manage this then just maybe I will give it a good shot over the summer.